CEOs' Perspectives on Growth, Innovation, and Leadership

Some 48% of CEOs and business leaders believe that they will rely on strategic partnerships to drive organizational growth in the next 3 years as digital transformation of the business ecosystem expedites the need for new alliances. This is just one of the findings of a Frost & Sullivan survey of 303 executives about their growth and innovation performance, objectives, and strategies; resource distribution; and external and internal growth challenges. Survey respondents also identify potentially disruptive technologies, business models, and Mega Trends, including the companies they see as the most disruptive industry innovators. They consider the strategies that they think promote best practices in organization. This research provides a foundation for designing a customized Growth Strategy Dialogue or Growth Workshop to discover the value of a partnership with Frost & Sullivan.

Global CEOs and business leaders overwhelmingly rank revenue growth as their top growth objective over the 2016-2021 period. This theme remains unchanged from our survey findings of a decade ago. However, most acknowledge that greater organizational clarity is required to effectively implement transformative growth strategies.

Interestingly, CEOs display decreasing reliance on competitive strategies and customer strategies to drive growth. This, despite customer satisfaction, market share growth and an enhanced competitive environment being explicitly identified as key growth objectives over the next five years.

Digital transformation is acknowledged as a dominant growth, innovation, and leadership catalyst over the next 5 years. However, nearly 34% of respondents indicate that the speed of technology change represents a real and immediate challenge.